Letting Go
by Damonficgirl
Summary: Episode post-scrip to Resurfacing Season 1 . Focuses on the changes in Nathan's friendship with Duke over time and what it was like for Nathan growing up in Haven. Update - Added a second chapter from Duke's point of view.
1. Chapter 1

**Letting Go**

**Setting: Season 1, after episode 12 **_**Resurfacing**_

Nathan Wuornos knew that the hardest thing about not only growing up in a town like Haven, but sticking around and making it your home, was having to face the shadows of your past, in the form of people, and places, which sometimes held less than wonderful memories.

For some people childhood is a source of nostalgia and sweet reminiscences but for others childhood is a bombsite full of the discarded and broken remnants of a past life that you can't quite escape.

It wasn't like Nathan didn't have any found memories of growing up in Haven, he loved Little League, going crabbing, even fishing with the Chief was alright if you ignored the awkwardness and the lack of anything resembling small talk. But growing up in Haven had also been full of the pain of rejection and not quite fitting in. Even when the troubles went away Nathan knew that his peers and many of their parents, never quite forgot that the Chief's son was different. That he wasn't quite "a real boy" as Duke put it.

College had been a bit of an escape at first, but Nathan was a man with a sense of home and duty, and he was haunted by the knowledge that the troubles would eventually return, so while he'd had his share of fun he'd never quite felt at home at frat parties surrounded by people who were innocent of the greater powers at work in the world. Nathan had been marked by his troubles and he would never feel like he was really one of them just as Audrey had felt different growing up in orphanages.

Since Audrey Parker had come to town one particularly painful reminder of his childhood kept resurfacing: Duke Crocker. The friend who had become the bully. That was what had hurt Nathan the most, Duke and he had been the same age, they'd played ball together, gone crabbing together. But their fathers hadn't seen eye to eye and Duke hated that Nathan sensed the truth about Duke's home life. Their emotionally distant fathers and deceased mothers could have been the commonalities that drew them together; instead Duke had gone out of his way to show the other kids that he was the class clown, the fun one, the cool kid, while Nathan was the too-serious troubled dork. A goody two shoes and a freak.

Nathan's childhood had been painfully lonely because of Duke and those other boys, except for a few moments of contact like that night with Heather, the Rev's daughter, but even that ended too soon. Nathan had spent years learning that it was better not to reach out to other people because you'd just get rejected.

When Duke had come back to Haven and he'd reached out to Nathan, asking him to go finishing, Nathan had thought that maybe they were going to put the past behind them, that maybe as an adult Duke would be the friend he had wanted and badly needed. But Duke had let him down, Duke had used him. Duke hadn't grown up at all. Duke was still the cool kid with a dangerous streak and Nathan almost could have forgiven him for that except that Duke had crossed the line and used Nathan as an alibi, without even asking, shattering Nathan's trust all over again.

But then Audrey Parker arrived and as much as he tried to warn her, Audrey kept trusting Duke, kept bringing him back into their lives. Nathan saw the way Duke looked at Audrey and felt not only guilty but apprehension and worst of all futility. In those early days after Audrey's arrival Nathan didn't think he stood a chance with Audrey because he was sure that she, like every one girl before her, would prefer Duke over Nathan, whether it was good for her or not. The worst thing was that part of him agreed with her, knowing that Duke wasn't one of the afflicted.

With so much water under the bridge it was no small thing to find himself sitting on Duke's deck drinking a beer. Nathan had put himself in Duke's hands again, despite his better judgement. He had even handed over his gun and his badge – the two tangible things that defined Nathan, and gave him faith in his identity as one of the good guys, a protector of the people. Amazingly, Duke had come through. Sure it had been entirely self-serving for Duke, but somehow Nathan had half-expected to be double crossed.

If Audrey hadn't come back into their lives Nathan doubted he would have even gone along with the plan, but slowly Duke had taken small steps back towards being less his enemy and more his friend.

Nathan knew that Duke's business operations still weren't all strictly legit, but it made him happy to see his childhood friend running The Grey Gull, and it gave him home that Duke was growing up and might finally be the friend he had hoped for. For now it was enough that Nathan and Duke were sharing a beer, and Nathan was finally, slowly, letting go of his bitterness of their past.


	2. Chapter 2

**Moving On**

_**Also set after Season 1 Episode 12 Resurfacing**_

When Nathan started talking about school and how Duke and the other boys had bullied him, Duke's stomach fell and twisted into knots. He felt physically ill. He wanted to run away or at least look away, anything other than facing Nathan, facing the truth of his past. But Duke knew that he owed Nathan that much. Duke knew that he couldn't keep hiding from his mistakes.

Any child who has bullied other children eventually becomes an adult, some fool their way out of a guilty conscience by rationalising that the mistakes of childhood were innocent, a child couldn't understand, didn't know any better, that it was all harmless fun. But men and women of real character eventually have to accept that the mistakes of the past raise some serious questions about who they are as a person. Of the evil that they are capable of and few know as well as Duke Crocker what it means to walk a fine line between morality and immorality, occasionally stepping a little either side of the line, sometimes a lot.

To Nathan it probably seemed like Duke's school days were easy, he always had other boys admiring him, laughing at his jokes, egging him on. But he also knew that most of them secretly judged him, judged his father, and only liked Duke because it was a thrill to hang out with Haven's bad boy. The Crocker's stood out from the crowd in a different way to Nathan and Duke knew that while the Chief would step in and stick up for Nathan, his own father never would, so Duke had to stay popular or the other boys would turn on him and make the motherless alcoholic fisherman's life hell.

The day that they'd stuck tacs into Nathan's back was one that Duke would never forget, not because of the lecturers from the principal or the beating from his father, but because of the horrible moment when he'd been sitting outside the principal's office and Garland Wuornos had arrived to pick up his son. The police chief had seemed larger than life to Duke, what boy didn't admire a man in uniform and Duke found so little to admire in his own father. Quietly consciously or unconsciously Duke had wished for a father like Garland.

When Garland arrived at the school simmering with rage that his boy had been victimised it was Duke who bore the impact of his vengeful glare. "You? Simon Crocker's boy? How dare you hurt my boy? Nathan is a good boy, he would never do anything to hurt anyone. He wouldn't hurt a fly. You, you're just as worthless as your father Crocker and you'll end up in prison one day, the same as him, and I'll enjoy that day, because it's what's coming to you."

Garland was fiercely protective of Nathan, partly for reasons that the young Duke couldn't possibly understand, and Garland had lashed out at the bully never imagining that the bully was just as, if not more, vulnerable than his victim. In that moment Duke had felt a sort of hopeless certainty that Nathan's father was right and that nothing Duke ever did in life would change the fact that he was fated to follow in his father's footsteps. He'd only been in the third grade – 8 years old - he had that to carry around with him and no parent who was ever going to lift his chin up, tell him they loved him and reassure him that he was capable of any more than that. Duke knew that Nathan's dad was hard work but at least Nathan had the luxury of feeling safe in his own home.

Nathan's affliction never seemed like such a bad thing to Duke, one of the reasons he made fun of it because he was jealous. Not feeling pain would have been useful in his world. And part of Duke wished he was special.

Nathan couldn't possibly know that every time he threw his pent up hostility and hateful words at Duke like "you're a lowlife criminal" it stung that old wound, that sense of worthlessness and inferiority. When they played together as children Duke got a glimpse at what it might be like to have a father with a real job, but Duke knew that world would always be inaccessible to him. His years away from Haven had only further confirmed that as Duke had been drawn into a world of crime.

Since Duke's return to Haven he'd started to wonder if maybe it was possible to turn things around. Words would never express what a gift _The Grey Gull_ had been. His boat had given him independence, a livelihood, but one that was rarely legitimate. At 21 he'd won a boat in a poker game but he'd had no money to crew her or fix her or feed himself and no clue how to run a legitimate business.

_The Grey Gull_ was a totally different gift; it opened up a world of legitimacy, a world where someone like Audrey Parker wouldn't be so ashamed to associate with him. Having Audrey turn to him for help was flattering, but having Nathan put some trust in him, actually handing him his gun and police badge, that gave Duke hope, that maybe he wasn't as far gone as he thought, that maybe he stood a real chance of turning things around. Since he'd taken over the Gull he hadn't totally given up his old activities, but every week that the Gull did well Duke was able to depend on that old world less. The thing was though the more Duke left that world behind him the more vulnerable he was to rejection from Nathan and Audrey's world. That just made him depend on them even more, and it was hard for Duke to depend on anyone except himself.

Having a beer with Nathan, playing a few games of cards, it didn't mean the walls between their words had been torn down, but hopefully the doorway between them was finally open because Duke was sick of standing on tiptoe and peering through the window. If Nathan could believe that Duke had changed, maybe Duke could believe it too.


End file.
